Asterby and Donington-on-Bain Lincolnshire THE first church book of the Asterby and Donington-on-Bain General Baptist Church has recently become available for inspection!. It is an unpaginated volume of 86 leaves. measuring 13 inches by 6 inches. Entries were made spasmodically between 1698 and 1868. and include lists of members for c.170.1. 1714. 1726. 1804. 1843. 1862; financial entries for 1698 only; baptisms of believers for 1.702-14 and 1783-1843; marriages for 1706 only; births for 1813-27; and burials for 1840-68. Asterby is now a hamlet, adjacent to Gou1ceby and three miles from Donington-on-Bain in the Lincolnshire Wolds between Louth and Market Rasen. Two miles up the hill from Goulceby is the depopulated parish of Cawkwell. most probably the "Chalk­ well" in Linoolnshire where Hanserd Knollys was born in 1598. Although Knollys' Puritan convictions did not emerge until he went up to Cambridge, his home life, with parents who "were religious and in good circumstances", inclined him in that direc­ tion. In 1631 Knollys resigned his first living as an Anglican incumbent at Humberston, near Grimsby, as his Puritan views developed. After a brief silence he preached for three or four years up to 1636 further south in Lincolnshire " ... the doctrine of free grace ... whereby very many sinners were converted. and many believers were established in the faith"2. In fact Hanserd Knollys did more than preach as an itinerant after leaving Humberston. for the Goulceby parish register tran­ script for 1633-4 is signed "Hnsrd Knollys Minister", and one entry was "John ye Sonne of Hansard Knollys was Baptiz:d March 1th day" 1633/4.3 There was already a Separatist Baptist church in Lincoln itself by .16264, in touch with the church that had returned to London under Helwys. It cannot be proved that it had a con­ tinuous history in that city up to the 1640s; but after the outbreak of the Civil War there was a rapid growth of Separatists in Lincolnshire eventually to be designated General Baptists. In 1651 they joined with similar churches in Leicestershire and adjacent counties in producing and signing "The Faith and Practise of Thirty Congregations, Gathered According to the Primitive Pattern". ,The Lincolnshire list begins with John Lupton 22 ASTERBY AND DONINGTON-ON-BAIN 23 and William Codlyn for Tattershall, Thomas Drewry and Richard Drewry for Goldsby, Ralph James and Dani,el Chesman for North Willingham, and Valentine James and John Johnjohns for Lin<::olns. Goldsby might have been Ingoldsby, a village between Grantham and Bourne where Henry Hitchcock was licensed to be a Baptist teaiCher at his own house in 16726• But in fact it refers to Goulceby, which lies between North Willingham, 8 miles away, and Tattershall, 17 miles away. with Lincoln 18 miles to the south-west. Richard Drewry signed The Second Humble Address presented to. Charles II in January 1661 by the Lincolnshire Baptists. John Lupton, Ralph James, Daniel Cheeseman and Valentine James were among the other subscribers. Perhaps Thomas Drewry was Richard's father, and was now dead7• Thirty-seven years later the original list of "the members that belongs to the Congrega­ tions of the Baptised bleevers" in the Asterby church book includes Richard Drewry of Benniworth or West Barkwith, villages just west of Goulceby. Towards the end of the Indulgence of 1672-3 Ralph James twice licensed himself as Baptist teacher and his house at North Willingham8• The fact that no licences were sought for anyone .in or around Goulceby, Asterby or Donington does not mean that the persecution of Charles I1's. reign snuffed out Richard Drewry's church, for there is no record of licences at Tattershall or nearby Coningsby, yet the Coningsby church book begun by John Lupton in .1657 has entries dated 1660, 1670 (an epitaph 9 for Lupton), 1671 (Charles Warwick appointed elder), and 1672 , Meanwhile from 1662 to .1696 the rector of Goulceby cum Asterby was Thomas Ashall. His churchwarden at Asterby in 1670 was Nathaniel Lockinglo. This Nathaniel was probably the father of the Nathaniel Locking who married the rector's daughter, Marie, at Goulceby parish church, 22 May 168811 • Their son, Edward, was baptized at Asterby parish church in March, 1690/1, and for that year one or other of the Nathaniel Lockings was churchwardenl2. They had several more children, but no more were baptized as infants in the Church of England. Not even Anne who was buried in December, 1693, had been baptized at a parish churchl3. The Asterby Baptist church book shows the reason. A note added to the earliest list of members says "Nath Locking & Mary his wife Baptized march ye 15 1692/3". This is the earliest event referred to in the book, but of course it was not the earliest event in the story of the Baptist congregations thereabouts by more than forty years. A new era opened with the Toleration Act of 1689, and the young Locking couple, brought up in families involved in parish church affairs, led a rebellion against the Establishment and the parish church system that spread from their own villages to Donington-on-Bain and Stenigot, midway between Asterby and 24 THE BAPTIST QUARTERLY interregnum occurred, until in 1699 Peregrine Wallett was rector: but by now the separation was complete, and the Baptist church book had been begun. Into this new beginning came Richard i:>rewry and his old Goulceby church, however small it may have been. The extent of this post-Toleration rebellion against infant bap­ tism may be gauged from the parish register transcripts. Peregrine Wallett began a separate list of "Dissenters born in ye aforesaid Parish", and of their marriages and burials until he left in 1710. During April 1699 to March 1700 four of the eight births in Goulceby cum Asterby were to Dissenters; 1702-3, four of the fourteen births were to Dissenters; one out of five in 1703-4; four out of eleven in 1704-5. Some alternative ceremony to infant baptism is implied in two entries, e.g. in 1710, "John Son of Wm & Mary Tuxworth An Anabaptist, named Febr 21th". From 1697 on the returns from Stenigot are headed "Bapt: or Born", in order to include those births that were not followed by baptism in Stenigot church: three out of five babies were not baptized in 1697-8, and none of the three born in 1698-9 were brought to the church. Likewise beginning with Benjamin Walker, the new rector of Donington-on-Bain in 1699, we have "Bapt: e Births", parti­ cularly for 1699-1700 when five of the eight born were not bap­ tized, and 1701-2" when four of the eight born went unbaptizedl4• The key years seem to have been .1697-1704. That this was a new movement away from the parish churches is c:x>nfirmed by the appearance of the same couples in the list of Baptist members c.1701 and in the parish register transcripts as parents of children baptized at the parish churches up to 1690: Nathaniel and Mary Locking; John and Mary Parish of Goulceby (children baptized 1678, 1679, 1684); Theophilus and Jane Gregg of Goulceby (child baptized 1675); William and Susannah Kidd of Donington (children baptized 1686, 1687). Asterby became the focal point of what was now a widespread church. It did not have its own resident parish incumbent; the Lockings lived here; and so did William Tuxworth who appears to have provided the regular meeting-house. This is first mentioned in the parish register transcript for .1707: "Marriages : John Tuxworth e Susanna 10hnson married att the Meeting-house in Asterby Aug 1st". William Tuxworth himself was married here in 170915• A note in the Asterby Baptist church book, based on a trust deed inspected in the 1860s, says "All that we know about the origin of Asterby Chapel or Meeting House is as follows A Mr WiIliam Tuxworth a member of the church conveyd the Chapel Stable and burying ground ajoining for the nominal sum of five pounds ten shillings The deed bears date Octr 1st 1722 ...". The site and graveyard can still be seen today, though the building Donington. They openly sided with the older General Baptists after Nathaniel Locking'S father-in-law vacated his living in .1696. An ASTERBY AND DONINGTON-ON-BAIN 25 was demolished earlier in our century. The first church meeting recorded in the Asterby church book decided "we doe thinke it is Conveiant if ye whole Congregation meet once by the yeare to sit at ye lords-table together and wee have apoynted it to be at Asterbe ye first day of June", 1701. In addition four quarterly church meetings were held, arranged in February .1701/2 as "3 at Stanigod and there about and one at Tatershall and we Appoint to meet at Tatershall on the 2 munday in may ..." In .170V6 lO6 members were listed, meeting at Donington (30 members), Asterby (25 members here and at Goulceby), and Stenigot (16), with further names under Stainton (8), Benniworth and West Barkwith (6), Hameringham (4), Bin­ brook (6), Wragby (2), Welton (2), and one each at Martin, West Ashby, Langton, Hemingby, Haugham, and Willingham. Finally the name of Leonard Isaac of Tattershall was added, and as "Elder" he heads the signatures to church business up to 1710. Tattershall (later Coningsby) and Asterby had their separate church books, separate services and meetings normally, and their own lists of members, yet they consipered themselves united. Thus Leonard Isaac of Tattershall and Nathaniel Locking of Asterby sign most of the entries in both church books.